"Hurry, mommy, let's go trick-or-treating!" my daughter waited by the door in her pink princess costume
while I paced the living room.
Usually I liked taking her out on Halloween, but this year, I was a wreck. I was worried sick about my mother,
who was in China on a vacation.
I got a call that afternoon that she had slipped and fallen on the marble floor of her hotel and broken her hip.
She was taken to a Beijing hospital. Mom was nervous because she couldn't understand any of the doctors.

There's nothing I can do for Mom except pace and pray, I thought.
We left the house and headed down the block. I was so distracted, I barely took note of all the costumed kids around me.
The sooner my daughter filled her bag with goodies, the sooner I could get back to my pacing.

A blinking red light approached through the darkness. It was a pumpkin-shaped pin attached to the coat of a man
whose son I'd once given piano lessons to.
"Hello there," I said, greeting him and the little cowboy at his side.
"Hello," the father answered.
"Hvaing fun?"
"I'm trying," I said.
"Why, what's wrong?" he asked.
I told him the whole story. "And I'm too far away to do anything!" I said.
"Beijing, you said?" he asked. I nodded.
He pursed his lips then smiled.
"My sister is a doctor at an English-speaking hospital there. If you want, I'll make a call right away and we'll try
and get your mom transferred."
A few days later I sat on the living room floor with my daughter as she finished the last of the candy.
"Mommy, how far away is China?" she asked.
"Not so far as I thought," I said.

-Barbara Marine/11 Guite Post
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